Once the number of states, or the radius of the neighborhoods, in an automaton becomes large, it becomes increasingly difficult to describe the rule; the only effective description is a listing of the transition table. Specialized automata are usually easier to describe; one of the most common special cases is that of a totalistic automaton, for which the transition depends only on the number of cells in various states, not their specific arrangement.
Accordingly, an option within the general rule is to show the totalistic variant within a submenu; it is convenient to reproduce most of the options within the submenu that were encountered in the principal menu to avoid the continual swapping of menus.
However the f1 option is not active for totalistic rules, which can nevertheless be included rather easily in the general file when they are desired.
To assist copying down an interesting rule on paper for eventual inclusion in the file, advantage can be taken of the fact that each change in the totalistic rule is immediately reflected in a redefinition of the general rule, which is still shown on the screen.